


The Moon Will Sing

by RosyLilac



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Adorable Ymir Fritz, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Little Red Riding Hood Fusion, But mostly fluff, Eren is trying his best, Eren needs to relearn his humanity rip, Found Family, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Levi is balancing expertly between thirsty for and exasperated at Eren, M/M, Magical Realism, Mild Language, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Older Eren Yeager, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, a tiny plot maybe, and functional parents, as a treat, ok maybe a dash of angst, ymir fritz deserves happiness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:20:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24860713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosyLilac/pseuds/RosyLilac
Summary: Levi had laid off bathing for a week straight all for tracking a feral werewolf –which was not acceptable in his book, only to instead, found an apple-cheeked little girl, probably no older than eight, clothe in rose-red dyed poncho, the hood covering her blond as a buttercup hair. Alone. In the depths of the possibly werewolf-invested forest.“The hell are you doing here all alone, kid? Where are your parents?”“Grandma,” she procures bunched up lavenders, some sprigs have a bent stem while others crumbling down dirt from their roots, clutched in her chubby, pink-knuckled grip. "For grandma."He pinches the headache coiling between his brows, “And where’s this senile grandma o’ yours.”.A red riding hood retelling. Now with extra fluff and family-friendly (in more ways than one)! Alternate title for this fic: "Levi Ackerman & Eren Jaeger's Occult Parenting Diary"
Relationships: Levi/Eren Yeager
Comments: 16
Kudos: 84





	The Moon Will Sing

**Author's Note:**

> I need to write something short (read: self-indulent three-parter) to get my creative juices flowing as I attempt to write the next chapter of Repeating History. 
> 
> The title is from a song with the same name by The Crane Wives, because I've been obsessing over that band for a while now <3 their songs got all the right vibes to write a fairytale.
> 
> Honestly, this is pure self-indulgence lol. I apologize in advance for inaccuracies in pagan traditions depicted here, if anything written here is deemed offensive, I will swiftly rectify it. Most of the magic system here is just me half-bullshitting, so don't take it too seriously, none of it is accurate depiction of Wiccan/witchcraft practice!

Levi swears to all the gods he doesn’t believe in, he’ll wring the life out of Hanji the moment he’s done skinning the pelt off the blasted beast currently eluding him.

The wind billowing faint rumors are the only thing luring the hunters guild to investigate a supernatural murder case, of a feral werewolf running loose. Hanji stumbled upon the rumor on their way back from a coven gathering, enthusiastically urging Erwin to send him to Hermina the moment Levi returned from his monthly respite, where the whispers bloomed the loudest.

The regulars there pointed him to the neighboring town, where his cousin twice-removed-something heard from her pal, then the said pal guided him to another tavern in another town, rinse and repeat with each town smaller than the last while each new sources shadier than the other.

The rumors played him like a cat entranced with a wiggling feather, sending him on a blind goose chase. By the time he catches on fate is playing him for the fool, he’s already all the way over in Dauper village, south of Rose's border, where he – _fucking_ _finally_ – met a reliable contact.

“The feral werewolf killed a family of three, as ye already knew. I woulda gone there m’self, but as ye see, ain’t got the leg for it no more,” the aging hunter Braus – _jes’ call me Rohan, Levi, sir, ain’t need t’ be so formal!_ he said as he poured Levi’s cup full of tea splashed in brandy _–_ chortles as he gives his thigh a good slapping, what’s left of his knee wiggles the stump where his calf should be, adorned with a webbing of pale-aged ghastly scar tissue. “I sent my Sasha to investigate, nothin’ but strictly scoutin’, she ain’t ready to handle werebeasts yet. Good news is, there haven’t been any more attacks since the first one. We figured the werewolf had migrated somewhere else. But the thing is...”

Under the brim of his stetson, the shadow it casts darkening further with his somber tense expression, the grooves of wrinkles on his aging tan skin deepen, “...the child’s body hasn’t been found to this day. Folks there sayin’ the child got dragged to its den in the forest and turned, but I doubt it.” 

Feral werewolves, essentially humans cursed by the bite or forcefully pelt-bind, don’t leave their prey alive. The natural-born ones though... “Maybe it’ll surprise us. If it turns out to be a born-werewolf going on a moon-mad murdering stint, the child might be alive; a hostage, or being trained to be an accomplice. The full moon only just passed a couple of days ago. Newborns are always too bloodthirsty from their first moon high,” Levi says, after helping himself a gulp of the tea between his clawing grip around its wooden rim, the brandy’s kick warming his parched throat. “I oughta teach ‘em sum’ manners.”

Braus grins, showing his crooked front tooth as he clinks his cup against Levi’s in a toast, “Aye. You oughta, sir! You’re the expert!”

Sasha Braus, a young hunter of her village and sole heir of her father’s craft, was generous enough to offer a day-ride on her retired-hunter father’s wagon to the place where the incident _actually_ took place.

The first thought that manifests the second he appraised the quaint old village, with its every building built entirely with wood unlike those in the Capital, or hell, even the small border towns in Rose, was of how he could’ve just _walked_ straight for three days than wasting a whole damn _week_ touring the entire kingdom _._

 _Of all places... it had to be Shiganshina,_ Levi thought, as he trudges forth to the sole inn Sasha had pointed him to, waving off her offer to play backup. Not looking back as she and the wagon trundle away back to the road.

Within every map currently in distribution, for hundreds of years, Shiganshina is a pale smudge nestling between the wildlands leading to the southern shore and the rest of the Eldia kingdom. One may imagine the cartographer had taken the sturdiest rubber and rubbed blank whatever had been painted there somewhat fiercely.

Things aren’t always so; Shiganshina used to laud the most fertile of soil birthing the best harvests and lumbers, where all manner of creatures, both magical and not, thrived in its wildlands. Legends claimed that the first of sorcerers hailed from the natives.

One such native, for example, is the wine-flushed faced innkeeper receiving the coins Levi trickled down to his palm for a price of a room for two nights along with breakfast and dinner. “Here for the feral werewolf, are ya, sir? Ain’t no bodies for ya to appraise, it ain’t right to delay their rest, sir. We had brought the Arlerts back to Mother Earth’s embrace days ago.” The blond man with sparse moustache shakes his head in exasperation mustered somehow through his state of obvious inebriation, “What took y’all hunters so long? It’s been a week! The trail gone cold already!”

With deft fingers, Levi retracts half of the silver coins from slipping off his leather-gloved palm. “Show me the victims’ house and I’ll tip you double. And I want hot bath water carried to my room after.”

Leaving the tavern to his wife’s care, the innkeeper reluctantly leads him to a small farmhouse at the edge of town. Its wooden dilapidated fences are broken in, the chicken coop completely annihilated, several windows shattered along with the backdoor leading to a small kitchen garden. Withering, wallowing in misery as though weeping in grief along with the grim house barren of life.

Levi appraised the interior, one room to another, with the innkeeper’s jittering guidance. They settled upon the completely upturned kitchen with its torn wooden floorboards revealing the stone and soil foundation underneath. The pantry, cabinets, and tables crumpled into splinters, wooden tablewares strewn across the floor, the ceramic ones merely sharp glinting pieces scattered like blown petals glittering with glass shards from a window impaled by one of the dining chairs, still stuck through its frame. Everything crusted with smeared blood, traces of blood-soaked handprints, fingertips on surfaces, clawing desperately away from something dragging them back. Acrid bile and damp rusted scent permeate the entire house.

“T-the folks' been restless. Some old wise women already burned herbs to ward off malevolent spirits when we braved inside, but we wanna clean the place up. There’s been wild animals-”

“Let them. I’ve seen enough and so were all of you for sure.” Levi gleans the brutal scene from under the shadow of his hood. There’s nothing to be salvaged here. “My contacts said the child’s body is missing.”

“Yessir. The poor tyke. We think the beast went away with it as a trophy, sick bastard.”

Feral werewolves don’t drag out their kill, they build a den to hide, not to pile food. They have no hunger. “The kid might be alive. Take me to the forest.”

Eyes bulged wide the blown pupils indicating intoxication shrinking to pinpricks, the innkeeper stuttered, the ruddiness of his cheeks blanched to puce-pale. “O-oh, ya ain’t wanna go there, sir. See, it’s a sacred forest, wise folks don’t go muckin’ ‘round there!”

With Levi’s _gentle_ persuasion, the innkeeper, now with a name to call him by – _“Hannes! Th-that’s m’name! Now kindly put your dagger off my balls, good sir hunter, sir!”_ – courteously escorted him to the forest in question.

A week of searching had led him to the edge of an old forest. Old enough to bear trees as wide as four stallions lined up and so impossibly tall their rustling, yellowing canopy barely casts shadows on high noon to the ground here, at the frontier of grassland beyond the village’s humble farmland borders, where these monstrous trees fenced off the rest of the tamed land and its mortal masters from their amber-stained sanctuary. Halting him in his tracks, dirt-beaten, smelling of unwashed armpits and stale sweat, irritated beyond belief.

“Well fuck me,” Levi glares at the darkness awaiting beyond the trees, challenging whatever staring back to _try him_ , “it just _had_ to hide its furry ass in these big-ass trees. Those sixty gold coins ain’t worth all this _._ ”

“Ey! Sir! Have some respect! These are sacred trees!” Having gone down to his knees, head bending facing the leaf-blanketed earth and lips kissing his clasped hands, Hannes hissed at him, eyes warily darting around. “We’re on a mystical ground, for gods sake! These are one of the last forests left standin’ in this region! It all thanks to this forest that the soil here good ‘nuff for farmin’, it saved us from famine!”

“This part of the region is cursed, ain’t it? Why not fly north to live closer to the Capital? Or Rose?” Many of south Maria natives did; migrating hundreds-odd years ago and integrating into one with the rest of Rose’s populace. “It’s better than living isolated here.”

Hannes climbs to his full height, the sweating, quivering drunkard from the bar dissolves. Before Levi now is a man with pride running through his veins. “It’s _our_ land, has been since before yer Eldian king set his shit-stained boots upon our shore. This island once called _paradise_ in our language, our Shiganshina its most fragrant flower. Karl fuckin’ Fritz burned our gods and homes to ashes ‘cause of his _petty_ _fears_. This is our home, we ain’t movin’ nowhere.”

Levi may not believe in any gods, but he knows magic exists; it’s tangible enough to prove its existence to him, with supernatural beings he has to deal with on a daily, and especially with a deranged but very much a real deal eclectic witch in the hunter guild’s roster pestering him with their endless rabbles about their recent experiments. Levi knows the myth, everybody does, from childhood through their mothers’ spinning the tale by their bedside at night. Shiganshina was a blessed ground, once a thriving ancient civilization rowing frontline on the trading race with countries ten times its size. The birthplace of magic itself, the first witches hailed from its natives.

Until few hundreds of years ago, the so-called Great Hunt befell the local populace for allegedly consorting with the dark leagues, causing the recent year-long draught and subsequently inviting the rise of nightmarish beasts population terrorizing everybody and their grandma, leading to the worst genocide of the kingdom’s history in the last century. The hunters were the baying hounds released by the king to bid his bloody orders. People refusing to covert into Eldian’s religion and kneel in loyalty to the king were culled, their witches burned and drowned along with millions of their scrolls and tomes.

Levi personally thought all those ‘justifying’ reasons are hock of shit. The king in that era was just one wimpy dogshit getting nervous at a potential usurper to his control of the island, when really, Shiganshina people were already on the island before the king’s ancestors themselves even speculate something lies beyond the mainland’s shore.

Now, the southern region of Maria is believed to be cursed. Most of the land is barren from being burnt and salted, whatever’s left alive or spawned from its ashes are deemed too dangerous to even look at. The forest in question, for example.

Levi nods, a glint of respect rose for the man before him. “Not like anyone could or would, people don’t give this place a second glance," he assures, only to receive Hannes sputtering with affront. Levi merely tells the truth; these people are better off forgotten, living peacefully under the radar with abundance of resources only for them to access. "Tell me, has there been any new sightings of the werewolf?”

“Well, see–” Hannes told him of several eye-witnesses, swearing up-and-down seeing a hulking form of a wolf as big as a horse patrolling the outskirt of the forest at dawn, and irregular howls in the night from the distance. A sheep had been spirited away three days ago. Hannes himself had seen its silhouette at blind dawn as he was retrieving water from the well at the town square. No wolves native to the land settled anywhere else than the mountains for years.

Levi sighs, rubbing his throbbing temple, fingers brushing against the greasy texture of his clumping hair hidden under his black hood to remind him of the current deplorable state of his hygiene. Gods, a thorough washing sounds so good right now. “It can’t be a feral, it must be sane if it doesn’t attack anyone else. Have you checked every villager for the signs?”

“That lass from Dauper, Brass-somethin’, already appraised all of us one by one. None of us are weres, and everyone knows everyone. It’s a small village.”

“You can go, here are your coins. The bathwater better be steaming when I get back.”

Listening raptly to Hannes’ footsteps until it grew faint enough the wind obscures them, Levi tugs free the string of necklace out of his shirt collar. Revealing an amulet it ties around; a craggy grey stone almost as wide as his palm and thick as a finger, its center bore a perfect circle. A hole. Bringing the adder stone to his left eye, Levi peers through its hole.

Levi huffs, “Huh. Whaddya know,” keeping still unblinking as a feathered snake creature no bigger than an eel fluttered across his line of sight, Levi gazes upon the autumn forest, glowing softly with fairy lights flitting around the spaces between trees, many-eyed creatures with amorphous body burrowing and blobbing in bushes, a bird as big as a cat with a head of a crocodile crows on a treetop, its voice sounds like a dozen robins chirping in turns. And those are only what he can see from here. “It is a mystical ground.”

Crouching, Levi unfurls his warding kit of a boline, candles, and other tools rolled into one in a sheet of waxed canvas. Fishing also from his thigh satchel, some herbs he already prepared for cleansing the tools. Levi is no witch, but every hunter worth their salt knows their chants and runes for simple charms and wards non-magicals can pull off with enchanted tools entrusted to them. He begins his hours of work, warding the forest borders with sigils to prevent magical creatures from breaching out of the forest, but letting them enter.

By the time he’s done, the sun has ripened red, half-bitten by the bleeding horizon.

Trudging forth the beaten path through the quaint little village, Levi casts his gaze around. The people encountering him through the road scuttled around him like mice with head bowed or cheek turned, others stationed safely under the awning of establishments’ porches –there aren’t many around, so their clumping sheeps' impression is easy to spot.

Levi caught a little figure staring straight at him from behind the circling stone of a well. Their eyes meet. The bright-eyed child yelps then sprinted its little feet towards a small livestock pen belonging to a butcher house beside it, leaping into the bleating sheep in their pen, scattering in panic at the sudden intrusion. Levi shakes his head with a scoff. _Kids_.

The scent of old wood and laundries mingling with body odors and dirt hits his nostrils; the smell of just every settlement he’d come across yet the air sweeter. Fresher. Tickling something deep in his ribcage. Catching the scent of malt and roasted meat between the mud, hay, and shit from the nearby stables, he makes a beeline back to the inn.

Hannes greets him behind the tavern’s counter again, sliding forth a mug of cool water for him, accompanied by a plate of salted crackers and fruits. “Bathwater’s steamin’ and ready, sir. So? Gon’ hunt tonight?”

“Tomorrow. I already laid a trap around the forest. The classic warding sigils. Even if it isn’t in the forest right now, it’ll come inside eventually, then it won’t be able to escape. It’ll be easier to find its den, since it’ll lead me straight into it,” No being with an ounce of magic in their blood could, besides the one erecting the sigils. “I’ll capture it then. If it’s feral, I’ll end its misery.”

“If it’s a newborn and because there aren't any new victims –other than Ol’ Diana’s poor sheep, that is– then, sir, that means...”

“Then, it’s up to the village chief and you people to decide what to do with the werewolf. My job is just to find the kid, smoke the werewolf outta the forest and tie the beast up all pretty for the people.”

“Oh. Err... I forgot to tell ya, sir. Somebody lives in that forest.”

Hand halting mid-feeding a slice of apple into his mouth, Levi closes his strained, bloodshot eyes, feeling the fatigue from sleepless days of travel catching up to him. “Why,” he growls through a dry throat, glaring at the now-gulping man, “you tell me this just _now,_ ” the plate jumps by his pounding fist against the table, a pair of figs bouncing to the floor,“whoever that unlucky hermit there would already be dead!”

“It’s fine! The ol’ lady’s a witch! Her house surely warded from the werewolf, but that means she hasn’t been able to go out with the beast roamin’ ‘round! So, umm, please, sir, can you- check on her? Or just, maybe, find the werewolf faster so the poor crone can-”

“ _If_ the hag lives _._ I’m goin’ up, bring my dinner by an hour,” Levi pushes off the chair, its feet screeching nastily against the wood floor. “I’ll have that werewolf wrapped up pretty for ya by tomorrow’s sunset.”

.

No werewolf head satisfyingly ripped off its shoulders or wrapped up nicely with a bow by the third day.

Levi is running out of patience. The forest is alive more than simply breathing, he suspects, as it continues to retch him out of its guts.

Each time he ventures inside, every single bush down to the birdsongs leads him back out right where he started at the border, facing the seemingly sympathizing farmland consoling his miserable self with their damn cheery pumpkins and waving wheat, all golden honey and ember fiery as the colors of fall should be. On another occasion, he was once so mercilessly swallowed by the depths, the sky had gone starlit bleak and blinding black as he made it out of the trees breathless. Wind biting cold, Levi tightened the black fur of his cloak around him.

He sniffed around for tracks around the forest’s edge, finding fresh tracks, leading to and from the village, circling the forest but not entering. Spending the rest of the third day spying and preying upon increasingly paranoid villagers, asking and prodding them for signs of moon-drunkenness, peering each faces through his adder stone. Came up empty.

“Maybe your warding is faulty,” Hannes offers on the morning of the fourth day, cleaning a mug with a washcloth. “You should che-”

“I’ve checked them twice every time I went,” his growl stuttered to a halt the rest of Hannes’ words, Levi himself nursing a bottle of wine. Not like he can get drunk from that. “Nothin’s wrong from my wards. It must be the witch’s doing.”

He’s no stranger to spells clashing against each other; the witch must’ve erected a ward or a spell whose nature is incompatible with his warding sigils, causing a minor reality-warping effect in parts of the forest.

“So visit her! She’s friendly, well, my great grand-aunt said so anyway. The witch’s been ‘round for a long time, the only one livin’ in these parts. The last anyone saw her was... uh... I don’t think there’s anyone still alive to remember. My great grand-aunt said the witch lives deep in the forest, just head straight to south with an intent to greet her, and you’ll find her eventually!”

From the sound of it, the witch in the forest must be a pruned raisin by now, Levi thinks, morbidly amused. Witches age slower than humans, but they age nonetheless. Climbing to his feet, he slams down the wine bottle, rattling the table he throws coins to. He’s running outta funds too, dammit. “Great. I’ll do that.”

“Good luck, Mr Levi! Here’s hopin’ you ain’t comin’ back with poison ivy rashes ‘gain!”

The air is different as he made his way through the farmland. There are smudged tracks upon the muddy path leading to the forest, seemingly materialized out of the cornfields walling one side of the path. Crouching and squinting, Levi feels irritation pulsing and bulging the vein on his neck at the hint of clawed paw he managed to make out of the indentation on mud. Of course, the second he’s not looking, the beast decides to come out to play.

Once again, he finds himself glaring through the dark of the forest. Squinting, searching for a glint of teeth grinning smugly at him, playing their tricks on his ass, thinking there ain’t hell comin’ to cash in vengeance long overdue.

Sending one last, suspicious look towards the farmland behind him, with a hissed _fuck you,_ Levi breaches into the forest. The prickling goosebumps on his nape persists, a feeling of being watched from the back.

Not a hush or a crunch made from his every step, only the sound of songbirds and insects singing in shambolic harmony. Melding along with the speckled shadows of the trees, Levi keeps himself undetected, stalking. Ears alert. One hand on the loop of his belt, the other on the pommel of his silver-bladed sword in its thick scabbard. He follows the breadcrumbs he left the last time he scouted; several traps undisturbed with each bloody meat bait only luring flies and creeping insects, others are carved slashes against specified trees, and even spots he pissed on.

His senses alert him of watchers, invisible to the naked eye. Levi knows better than to pull out his adder stone here; it’s for discreet surveillance only. Fae folks and other creatures don’t engage those who don’t purposely seek them out, they take it as an invitation. He keeps his face clear of any discomfort, unyielding and unbothered.

On his travel, he occasionally encounters blocks of man-carved stone, ruins of marble pillars, overgrown with ivy and moss, or swallowed behind brambles. Such encounters fail to surprise him with wonder. Shiganshina used to be adorned with temples and statues taller than towers, housing the best of scholars and acolytes long before Eldian people stepped upon the island’s shore, long before there’s even a kingdom uniting all scattered settlements under one banner.

Levi feels his teeth clatter from the bustling wind, it’s growing colder as winter approaches. As much as he loathe to admit it, having Hanji around would be nice right about now. They could fashion a seeking tool with a cord tied around a sprig of yew along a pair of pebbles or just two knots, let hung from a wrist, forming a straight line reaching the ground. Witches can find things or persons lost with that method, but not Levi, nope. Not a drop of spell-weaving talent in his blood at all. He gotta search for the witch with the old method. 

Hours had passed, on his estimation, looking at the sun, it’s way past high noon. He’s been walking a long way to the south, and still, no sign of a witch.

Levi rubs his sweat-damp temple, sighing, “Okay, look. I know you can hear me, witch. Probably. I just wanna _talk,_ no harm to you or anything you hold dear.” He’s careful not to promise anything, the witch is not the only being that might eavesdrop.

Just as he mustered the intent to twist heels back to the direction of the village, he hears it.

Immediately, he crouches behind a bush, one hand on a dagger. A rustle, a twig crunching. A humming, melody too orderly in rhythm to be anything else than a song. Coming from somewhere further front, west.

Levi creeps in the shadows, mindful of fallen dry leaves and twigs, closer until the humming clear as bell. Slowly, he peers behind dense thickets and wild juniper branches, finding a small clearing carpeted by splashes of spring colors. Flowers. Thriving under the warm ray of sun. The sweet smell pungent enough to clog his nose. On the center of it all, a little figure sitting on their haunches. The source of the humming.

Levi brushes aside the thicket as gentle as he could, but the little one quickly tensed. Hooded head up, tilting, rapturously listening. Not wasting time, they skittered away.

Levi calls out, “No, hold! I mean no harm! Wait pl-” Shit. Gotta watch his words, it could be a fae. They’re a pain in the ass on a good day, but he can come up with a small exchange with little consequence for their help, a sure direction. The little one already falters in step, then quickly tumbles behind a fallen tree log, devoured partly in moss and mushrooms. Levi crouches to their eye-level, pulling back his hood a bit, to let them see his completely human visage. “See? Not a monster. Just a lost man- uh-”

Now close enough to clearly see the little one, he realizes then, it’s not a fae. No. It’s worse.

Levi had laid off bathing for a week straight –which was not acceptable in his book, went on a wild goose chase across the kingdom, got stuck in bumfuck nowhere with thinning funds, and got played for a fool by a damn magical forest, all for tracking a feral werewolf. Only to instead, found an apple-cheeked little _human_ girl, probably no older than eight, clothe in a rose-red dyed poncho, the hood covering her blond as a buttercup hair. Alone. In the middle of a possibly werewolf-invested forest. The prime bait for the damn beast.

This day cannot get any better, can it?

“The hell are you doing here all alone kid?” The attempt at sounding nicer somewhat succeeded, flying colors in his standards. “Where are your parents?”

The little girl flinches at his words, tremblingly looking up with glistening eyes, blue as robin’s egg, pale eyelashes thicker than the brush of a high-quality broom Levi had been eyeing for a while from a shop window in Mitras, long enough to brush her baby-fat cheeks. She ducks again behind the log, shrinking, curling up into a ball. He can smell salt building, a fresh damp dew about to emerge. Oh no. _No_. She’s gonna _cry_.

Opening both palms in a hopefully placating manner, Levi amends, gentler in tone, “I’m not a bad man. I’m a hunter-” a small hiccup chirps along with wet snuffling, the top of her red hood trembles like a leaf. Shit. Dumb move; admitting he’s a hunter only makes it worse, kids get scared easily with armed men, right? Ahh shit. What would Erwin do- no, emulating the man will be a sure-fire way to make the girl scream in terror, let alone doing what Hanji will do. Who’s the most reasonable, sane, harmless- ah. Moblit.

He remembers the bookkeeper dhampir playing with Eld’s visiting kid, entertaining a simple game to keep the hyperactive puppy occupied.

Bringing his fist upon the log’s surface, he raps his knuckles against it. The rhythmic thumps upon the thick wood sends the girl jumping, but not fleeing. “Knock. Knock.” Damn, it sounds weird. His voice too rough, like he just recovered from a bad coughing fit. Why. The whimpering is abated though, so he counts it a victory. Knocking again, gentler, “Hey. Knock-knock. Somebody’s knocking.”

Slowly, the little red hood turns her head, peeking gingerly behind the other side of the log. Apple-flushed cheeks and damp blue eyes the only thing Levi can see. Half-snivelling, she croaks, “H- Wh- Who?”

Her voice sounds like a dying owl, croaking its last hurrah. Levi smothers the initial snort building in his throat, “Owl says.”

Those blue eyes blink, droplets of tears rains from her fluttering eyelashes, “O-owl sa-say who?”

“Yes, they do.”

Her pale eyebrows coil tight, lips pouting as she mulls the answer over. Levi begins to think maybe it’s too complicated for her, her speech mannerism oddly choppy and awkward for kids her age, how old is she actually? Maybe younger than she looks? But then the girl gasps, clapping her hands with a laugh blossoming from her mouth. Her grin showing a missing front tooth. “Who! Who! Owl says hoo! Hooo! Ha ha ha!”

Levi exhales a bated breath, one crisis averted. He knocks again, the girl now anticipating, chubby pink-knuckled hands gripping the wood, chin propped upon it in eager giddiness. “Knock-knock.”

“Who there?”

“Hatch.”

“Hatch who?”

“Bless you.”

She squeals, delighted, clapping hands again, giggling. Levi huffs. Something so simple brings enormous joy to this bundle of red wool, huh. The little girl knocks on the wood this time. “Knock-knock!”

Indulging her, Levi answers calmly, “Who’s there?”

“Cow!”

“Cow who?”

“No! Cow moos!” She collapse on her back, rolling in the grass curled up hiccuping, bursting into uncontrollable peals of laughter like it’s the cleverest thing humanity could ever come up with.

Rolling his eyes, Levi knocks, “Knock-knock.”

She climbs to her knees, crawling on fours like a kitten to meet him across the log again. “Who there?”

“Kalyu.”

“Kalyu who?”

“Call me Levi,” Levi waves her over, patting a patch of grass beside him. “What’s your name, kid?”

“Y-! Ah! No!” Tiny hands clap shut her lips, now her joyously glimmering eyes riddled again with fear. “No name! No! Bad! Bad!”

Levi reels back, raising both palms open again. “Woah. Okay. No name. Bad,” huh, looks like the kid has been taught well. “Giving names to a stranger is a big no-no, right? Names got power. You’re so smart.”

She nods solemnly, then pointing her index finger at his nose, “Said your name! Bad!”

“Ah. Yeah. My bad.” He would’ve knocked his own teeth off with a fist for his blunder. What if he’s really talking to a fae? He’d be fucked ten times over. Not even Mike with all his changeling advantage could save him from fae folk enslavement. “But I never said it’s mine. I just told you to call me by that,” she loosens the scrunching of her face, blinking in bewilderment at him. Levi smirks, “and if it _is_ mine, you wouldn’t tell anyone, would ya?”

The little cherub shakes her head, offering him a pinky, “Swear! Safe with me!”

“Thanks,” twinning his own pinky with hers, he suddenly wants to plunge his head deep in the soil at the sight of his pinky completely enclosing her baby-chub one. So tiny. A colony of ants manifesting inside his ribcage, overtaking his beating heart, tickling the organ with their swarm and making a home in the arteries, clogging them with the sugar they stored in clattering mandibles.

“I still don’t know what to call you.” An idea strikes. He points at her cloak, brighter than a cardinal in winter. It’s a miracle nothing with sharper teeth has pounced her yet. “Red. Can I call you red?”

Receiving her assenting nod, Levi continues, “So, Red. What are you doing so deep in the forest? It’s dangerous.”

Red toddles out of her hiding spot, beelining towards a purple swathe in the clearing. Dropping to a crouch, weeding out the blooms growing around her. Levi follows after her.

“Grandma,” she procures bunched up lavenders, some sprigs have a bent stem while others crumbling down dirt from their roots, clutched in her chubby, pink-knuckled grip. "For grandma."

Looking down again, at the big robin-blue eyes innocently batting her eyes at him. Levi casts his gaze to the small meadow, sight latching on to a small basket, upturned. Spilling colorful flowers, berries, and herbs. Lavender in her hands, then looking at the rest of the blooming flowers in the clearing; cheery-yellow cored cosmos, tall thymes, ragged-weed dandelions.

Putting two and two together, he pinches the headache coiling between his brows, “And where’s this senile grandma o’ yours.”

“House!” Little Red jumps back to her feet, snagging his hand in hers, tugging insistent. “House! Levi, come!”

“Yes, yes. _Thank_ _gods_ ,” Levi let himself be dragged around, Little Red gathering her abandoned basket, him helping her picking up the spilled contents as an apology for startling her.

Skipping her every step, she hums a wordless song with head bobbing side to side, basket in one elbow, the other hand grasping his, swinging theirs together with every little leap taken. Effortlessly weaving them through the foliages in various stages of browning –or bleeding; imitating colors of sunset, her cloak blends with the waning verdures as though they birthed her the same way a baby nymph emerges from a sprout. The forest seems to shuffle aside, branches yielding, making a room for a path she would tread. Levi sends the giant trees and overgrown shrubberies around him a glowering sneer at the obvious favoritism.

Eventually, a shape takes form at the far line of his vision, a stone hewn construct. Vines, moss, and ivy skittering its surface, most of it dissolving into one with bushes and small trees. Straight ahead they’re heading towards its core, an arching gate perfectly rounded. A moon gate. Wholly intact, not crumbling nor in state of disrepair like the ruins he encountered.

Past the moon gates, they are first greeted by an abundance of greens. A shocking shift from sunset colors of the forest, as though autumn had frog-leaped over winter straight to spring in a blink.

The greenery encompasses a beautiful little cottage of white stones and cherry wood, some of its broad moon-round windows are stained; shards of colored glass forming shapes of delicate constellations and others of artistic moon cycles, hosting a small flowerbed under each, growing herbs and flowers alike. A billow of white smoke puffs out the vine-cradled stone chimney –not dirty smoke of coal fires, but a sweet, fragrant wood smoke. The pillars of the porch hugged by crawling vines of grapes and the awning roof draped in hanging pomegranates. There are a single round glass table and white-painted chairs settled on the porch.

Surrounding the whole cottage, are a shit-ton of plants. The dirt path leading towards the door is bordered by flowering plants some bearing fruits, a neat kitchen garden bursting with bulbous pumpkins and squashes filling the left space. While across it, are a group of trees Levi didn’t see hide or head of from outside; the biggest of them is one with leaves –no, flowers? twilight violet and wispy white draping upon the rooftops and a pond below it. Wisteria. The bark tied by a cord, connected to another tree, draped with sheets and laundries. Several other trees are paired alike in such a way. The whole area bordered by a stone wall encircling and connecting as one by the moon gate.

Levi blinks, scrubbing his eye with the back of his wrist. Nope. Not an illusion, nor a sleep-deprived hallucination. Everything’s flowering and ripening. In the cusp of autumn to winter.

That’s impossible. No witch can control the weather to such extent, and in a specified location too. It requires an extensive ritual, a year-long rune set-up with its complicated arrays, and even then, the finished product only lasts for a pitifully short time. He’d know; Hanji attempted such folly of a project, resulting in an impromptu rendition of the Great Flood inside the guild’s tavern.

He’s shaken out of his reverie by Red’s insistent tugs, practically digging down her heels, tiny body taut in concerning angle. “Come! Come! Levi meets grandma!”

“Right. Let’s-” He nearly topples over, hand snapping out of Little Red’s grip quickly seizing the arching gate. Looking down his booted feet, only squirming when he orders them to rise, even his knees won’t bend. They’re stuck. Realizing, the moon gate is anchoring him down with magic. An array of sigils glowing faint crimson around its arch. A ward.

They both jolt at a banging of thick wood against a solid surface, the jarring sound shattered the humming tranquility of the springtime sanctuary and the rusting autumn forest behind, heralding forth a figure emerging from the quaint cottage seemingly devoured by all manner of greenery.

Framed by the opened door, is a very much youthful adult human in sage-green linen tunic reaching to his brown-trousered knees it might as well be a dress. Hair long and dark as mahogany fluttering, glaring a sun’s worth hot-blaze through Levi’s skull with his gaze. The tall figure climbs down the steps out the porch, one hand clutching a smoking bundle of sage and the other brandishing up a shovel like a javelin, aiming at Levi’s heart.

“Grandma!” Little Red waves unabashed, dauntlessly baring her missing front tooth with her sunny grin. Levi tugs her still by her other hand, snatched to be clutched in his grip, now stronger. Ignoring her fretful wide eyes staring at his chin in favor of watching the other adult’s every move.

The voice strongly suggests Levi that ‘grandma’ isn’t an apt title to call this person by. It was strong and masculine, slight rasping not of age, closer to a growl. “Get your hands off her, you two-bits piece of shit hunter!”

“You raised a kid with that mouth, _grandma?"_ He recognizes their kind anywhere; the burning sage, the invisible wards erected through carved sigils on the gate, the overgrown gardens, the all-linen garb. It’s all so glaringly obvious. The blade of the shovel is probably silver too. Levi holds up a palm open, “Peace, witch. I mean no harm, just escorting your little miss here.”

“Release her then!” The smoke from the sage flickers furious red, the sudden emergence of brisk wind carrying the pungent scent of salt and sage. The hair along Levi’s arms stands, a static electricity building, his eardrums growing bloated. Levi holds back the instinct to unsheathe his dagger. The witch’s lips do not move to evoke any spell, yet the air already crackling and pulsing with raw energy. “She’s innocent. Whatever’s your business here, it’s between us both only.”

Eyes narrows at the wording, Levi grows reluctant to comply. The witch knew something, why else would he ardently defend the child’s innocence? Could he have a hand in the incident?

Looking at the situation, however, he’d rather have an innocent child out of the line of fire than holding on to her as a bargaining chip. The witch already gearing up his spell. Chances are, it’ll banish or separates him bodily from the little girl. The interrogation will be longer if he grants a peace offering, showing no hostility from his side.

Calmly and slowly, Levi releases Little Red’s hand, letting her trot eagerly towards her ‘grandma’, colliding against his thigh and cuddling around it like a cicada.

“Ymir, get inside,” The witch isn’t lowering the shovel, pushing back the girl by her shoulder. She shakes her head with a muffled whine. “Ymir. Get. Inside. I need to talk to our guest alone.”

“Good!” Chubby fists pounding against the witch’s waist, Ymir growls with a lisping lilt, stubbornly pouting, jabbing her index finger at Levi in tune with her words, “Hunter good! Good! No hex!”

“I won’t hex him. Get inside. I won’t tell you thrice.”

“Oi, Red. Listen to your granny.” Catching the girl’s attention again, Levi jutted his chin, “It'll be fine. We’ll play knock-knock again, yeah?”

Little Red whines behind tremendous pout, face flushing and wide doe eyes leaking fountain-worth of tears, glimmering, sending Levi a speechless desperate plea. Levi steadfastly remains unaffected. She looks up to her guardian, who has a hand caressing her hooded head, not looking back but persisting in keeping wary eyes to the intruder.

Seeing as she’s fighting a losing battle with both adults unbudged, she reluctantly climbs the steps to the porch, hiding behind the door.

“Close the door, Ymir,” ordered the witch.

At the click of shutting door, the witch snaps his fingers, the sound of several slots sliding into place and a key turning to lock joins swift. Little Red vocally seethes behind the thick door, her voice muffled.

Levi can’t stop the swooping lurch his heartbeat made. A chantless cast without any conduit, done so effortlessly. No witch can do that even with centuries practicing their craft. This _being_ can’t be a witch, it can’t be a human. A changeling? Perhaps cambion or dryad? Or gods forbid, a full-fledged fae, and Levi just so happens to foolishly stumble blind into the fae realm. Maybe the moon gate is a fairy ring in disguise. Shit. His hands had froze too, straight at his sides. He’s utterly fucked. Ten-fold.

The so-called witch strides towards Levi until the distance between them erased to mere one stone throw away, the smell of sage and crisp ozone before a storm thickened while Levi becoming increasingly aware of how imposingly tall the other man is, Levi needs to crane his neck at an uncomfortable angle for their eyes to meet.

Now, upon closer look, Levi can see that the color of the witch’s eyes is more vibrant than every leaf and grass existing around them as though their differing shades are absorbed then united into one color that encompasses them all at once; clearer than the weather above and the pond far at their side, contrasting stark against the sun-kissed tone of his skin. The shape of those eyes are exactly that of Little Red’s; quality broom eyelashes and all. Instead of endearing childish twinkle though, they broadcast magnetizing power through controlled contempt that Levi had no doubt would eviscerate him on the spot if the witch so wishes.

What the hell. He’d chalk it up to one of the characteristics all witches have, but to be honest, none of the witches Levi knew are this unfairly gorgeous. Yeah, no way he’s a human, it’s the only explanation. Definitely a cambion. With a succubus sire.

“You’ve trespassed my territory multiple times despite my gentle warnings... and you just _had_ to carve runes in weird places I can’t reach, huh?” The witch drawls, voice dark and displeased, acknowledging Levi’s suspicion that he is responsible for his three days of hardship. Levi is vindictively pleased that he managed to inflict similar inconveniences to the witch. “I want nothing to do with your _ilk._ I would’ve eject you out of the region entirely, if not for those damned wards you put up around the forest passively protecting you. Tell me why I shouldn’t eviscerate you now, hunter.”

“I’m looking for a feral werewolf’s den, the one killing a family in the village. You mighta heard of it,” Levi answered without preamble, his patience for any pleasantries or ass-kissing long exhausted. “If you had just let me do _my job,_ those wards woulda been disassembled quicker and I’ll be outta your hair in no time, witch.”

“There’s no feral werewolf in this region, if there is, the hunters would be none the wiser. I would’ve already handled it. Like I always do for _hundreds_ _of_ _years_ ,” the witch hissed. “Why do you think there’s never been a whisper of any supernatural attacks in Shiganshina?”

The revelation fills in the gap the guild has been mulling over for years. The hunters figured the lack of incidents or cases is due to the inhospitable environment, the more traditionalistic ones convinced the land really is cursed as the legend said that even nightmares fear to linger there. Hints of the witch’s capability convince Levi somewhat of his boast.

“Then it’s a born-werewolf. They’re still on the loose, many saw them running around near the village. Whether they’re feral or not, moon-mad or not, that werewolf owes responsibility for what they’ve done,” Levi explains, inflectionless. “Hell, I’ll let you tag along on the search and you can make the judgement call on the beast.”

The witch presses his lips tight to a thin line, eyes frigid as winter. “What would you do if you had found the werewolf?”

“If it's a feral, I’ll kill it.” Death is mercy for those cursed into werebeasts; humans that are either forced into pelts of skinned werebeast or transformed by malevolent witches into mindless beasts, their minds lost, there’s not even a hunger or desperation left, only rage. Cursed to rampage, not even to sustain themselves but for the sake of rage itself. They’ve already passed in soul, their vessel is the one haunting the living.

“But since _you_ said it couldn’t be it, it’s must be a born-werewolf. I’ll capture them, hand them over to the court and whatever –that is, if you don’t want anything to do with the asshole. They killed two innocent people and the kid’s still missing. Even if they’re dead already, the kid deserves a proper rest beside their parents _and_ justice for their deaths.”

“You’re not here for the werewolf,” tilting his head, the witch appraised Levi with a different light in his eyes. “It’s been a week, hunters wouldn’t look into cold tracks if there are no more attacks, or they’ll turn a blind eye; moon-madness is common for newborns, any incident caused by it should be settled by the village or town they belong to. If its a newborn’s moon-madness with no continuous incident following the first one, there’s no need to look into it. You’re here for the missing child.”

“I thought it was obvious,” Levi scoffs, “I just said I’m lookin’ for the den, did that flew over your head? If I caught the newborn too, that’s a bonus. There’s the slightest chance the kid’s alive, ain’t no way to give up the search.” 

The witch stays silent. Motionless. Staring at Levi with a calculating, yet fascinated look. Levi waits. He has no qualms on waiting, the ward freezing his body seems to relax his muscles that he felt no cramp from suspended animation at all.

“I heard you, in the forest,” the witch gingerly admits, eyes roving over Levi’s features for reaction, testing the waters. “You said you won’t harm me and all I hold dear. I want you to swear it.”

That’s the mother of all bad idea, Levi’s mouth opens to say so, but the witch cuts through, “I swear by my name that the same will applies to me for you,” he swings the shovel, it flies far off from reach by the wisteria root. A vine of wild plant growing between the crevice of the moon gate’s stones droops down on its own, the witch reaches out to pluck its fruit. A pair of strawberries fused into one. The witches’ nails dig between their joining to separate into two.

“I, Eren Jaeger of Shiganshina, swear not to inflict nor causes harm, physical and metaphysical, direct and indirect, to my guest and everything and everyone associated with him in my territory and beyond. I will continue not to harm after our encounter come to pass, unless my guest inflicts harm to me first. By the witness of the mother goddess and her daughters, so mote it be,” one strawberry he bites, chewing to swallow in Levi’s witness. The other offers forth to Levi, palm open.

It’s the sacred law of hospitality. By eating the food served by the host, Levi will be under the witch’s protection, the witch will be obligated to shelter and provide for Levi as long as Levi doesn’t breach his end; being courteous back. No blood shall be spilled under the law of hospitality. He’s not giving him a choice. The oath is air-tight too. Damn. Not bad.

Levi tests to twitch his fingers, finding that he can raise his right arm, reaching to grasp the offered fruit. “I, Levi of Mitras, swear not to inflict nor causes harm, physical and metaphysical, direct and indirect, to my patron, Eren Jaeger of Shiganshina and everything and everyone associated with him in his territory and beyond. I will continue not to harm after our encounter come to pass, unless my patron inflicts harm to me first. By the witness of the mother goddess and her daughters, so mote it be.”

Levi bites into his strawberry, the acidic sweet juice burst in his tongue, careful not to spill out of his lips. Only after both of their fruits left nothing but stem, the ward disintegrated its hold. Levi tests his legs, pleased he senses no tampering nor fatigue.

“Let’s start this over, shall we?” Eren Jaeger sighs, brushing back the tresses of his hair behind his shoulder, hand splays upon his heart, “Merry meet, hunter. I’m Eren Jaeger of Shiganshina, welcome to my humble abode.”

“Levi,” Levi says succinctly. “Now, are you going to help me search for the den or just tell your big ass trees to stop harassing me?”

Eren steeples his fingers on his stomach, eyes shifting to a non-descript moss on the moon gate’s wall. “There’s no search needed.”

Levi arches an eyebrow, “You handled it then?”

“Yes, and no. The werewolf in question is not a feral, _but_ I rather not hand them over to the villagers.”

Levi clicks his tongue, “Quit skirtin’ ‘round, witch. Explain to me why a murderer shouldn’t be punished accordingly? Even if you don’t give a damn about the lives of the villagers, there’s a child’s life at stake, or its spirit anyway,” a restless ghoul borne of a corpse with improper burial is a pain, on top of the rogue werewolf, “you can at least grasp the concept of closure, can ya?”

“I- yes. But you see... ah. I think it’s better if I show you,” Eren turns, waving Levi to follow treading the path to his cottage.

Levi supposes now’s the best time to ask, before the next big shitshow hits the fan. “How did you maintain weather-controlling magic around this place? It’s autumn everywhere else but here.”

“Huh? It’s autumn now?” Eren turns to face him, hair flying with his head’s motion. Viridian eyes wide in genuine surprise. He looks around his garden as though betrayed by his own kin. Eren scowls, “Lazy brats. All of you!” He addresses his garden, who, as gardens do, doesn’t react too dramatically, “It’s autumn already, you all better change colors by the time I go outside again. No, I don’t want to hear it, Dorothy,” Eren glares at the wisteria tree, index finger jabbing to its direction, “Shed them or _I_ shed them for you.”

The wisteria tree breathes. Levi wonders if he should just turn heels now back to Mitras and forcefully wax Hanji’s hair bald already. Madness runs deep in witches’ blood, it seems, seeing as Hanji does the same to their mystic inventions. Eren shots the tree one last warning glare before weaving the burning sage around Levi until he’s thoroughly cleansed, leaving the sage in a bowl on the glass table. Opening the front door, gesturing Levi to enter first.

“Ah-ah, leave your shoes in the rack beside you,” Eren gestures to a low shelf near the door, just beside the doormat, giving Levi a reprimanding look similar to one his mother does when he was younger, “I rather not have dirt tracks inside.”

Levi happily obliges –pleasantly surprised. Finally, someone with common sense; everyone he knows always wears their shoes in their homes, reasoning it’ll be cleaner for their feet, and prevention from getting hurt by stray shrapnel or whatnot. But not cleaner for their damn houses, imbeciles. There’s only such shrapnels ‘cause they ain’t leavin’ the damn filth well enough alone outside, they gotta drag it along with ‘em.

Stepping barefooted inside, it’s bigger than it supposed to, based on the proportion of the exterior. The floor is warm under his feet, both in color and temperature, the chill of winter won’t be able to creep in. It’s not dim like he’d expected, every broad window opened to invite in generous sunlight into every corner, white lace curtains gently flowing with the cool breeze, crystals placed strategically around the room to reflect sunlight, illuminating untouched corners. All walls bearing paintings and talismans, rugs of furs and thick wool alike carpeted all the right comforting spots, leading to plush sofas and wooden tables.

The interior bears one thing in common with the exterior: plants. Plants in colorful glass containers of various odd shapes hung by thick cords to the ceilings, there’s a small shelf of flowerbeds filled with herbs beside a fully-stocked dense spice cabinet and more hung low from the ceilings in the neat open kitchen, even in bookshelves lining almost every wall there are _at least_ five plants tucked between volumes or paraphernalia. A stone fireplace crackling fire to a burnished copper cauldron bubbling softly, the mantlepiece hosts –you guessed it, plants in pyramid and dodecahedron terrariums, carved statues, crystals of various sizes and colors, and a bowl –which Levi assumes to be the milk offering for the _brùnaidh_ keeping this place from devolving into total chaos rather than an organized one.

Eren leads him to one of the sofas –or what Levi assumes to be sofas, not mountains of trash, in an open sitting room with an altar built in the wall hosting black and white candles in ornate candlesticks, a cauldron of offerings, softly smoking incense, and various talismans. The room is facing broad ceiling-to-floor windows showing the scenery of a beautiful open terrace bursting with delicate blue flowers growing around the pillars and railings, it seems to also serve as celestial bodies observation deck... or arcane ritual space. Based on the concerning amount of candles and ash-stained crystal bowls strewn about there.

Eren groaned at the pile of scrolls, grimoires, and obscure gold-gilded apparatuses piling the table and hiding most of the sofa. “Sorry for the mess, I’m in the middle of redecorating. Gotta childproof everything,” he heaves the volumes off the sofa, plopping them neatly beside it, giving the same treatment with scrolls and apparatuses on the table. Several fleets of cards fluttered from the scrolls. “Oh. I’ve been looking for this tarot dec– umm. Please sit down here while I look for my granddaughter. Tea and snacks will be served _immediately_.”

With that last punctuated declaration, Eren dashes off, climbing a spiraling staircase leading to the second floor. Levi throws himself into the sofa, exhaling all the tension coiling, building for hours within him. Spying the house, there are no doors as far as Levi can see, only draperies draping entrances to other rooms –one of them, he observes, is a chamber full of hand-woven tapestries and sheets, an old great wooden loom peeking in the corner. The draperies are beautiful; thick curtains in rich midnight blue, glittering with gold and silver threads crocheting stars and flowers. The witch seems to have an obsession with plants. Maybe he’s a green witch or a kitchen witch. An absurdly powerful one.

Levi jolts at the sudden noise of water currents from the table, alarmingly finding also, a ridiculously tall, pale woman in immaculate white clawhammer coat and cream breeches, complete with a mother-of-pearl frilly lace cravat with matching gloves. The sun might’ve bleached her hair for centuries from how pale the cropped straight and short blond hair is, yet her skin is paper white as though the sun purposely avoids it, not a hint of blush on skin. If she isn’t steadily tilting the teapot, Levi would’ve believed she’s a marble statue –automaton, maybe?

“Oi. The hell you come from?”

The woman keeps her head bowed until the semi-translucent crystal cup on a uniformed saucer –along with trays bearing milk jugs, sugar bowls, and three-tiered cake stand full of finger foods and fruits that Levi swears blind wasn’t there before– is filled with steaming tea she poured from the crystal teapot. The hair of his nape stands at the wide, void-black eyes belonging to the woman, now has straightened to her full height, staring him with a blank expression, hands settled behind her arrow-straight back.

Of course. The milk saucer on the mantelpiece. She’s the house’s _brùnaidh_.

House spirits always give him the creeps. Without taking his eyes off the spirit, Levi reaches for the cup, drinking the tea scalding his tongue. He offers her a curt nod.

From behind her back, she procures a glass of cool water. Arching one eyebrow. She circles the sofa and disappears around the corner of his sight. Levi scowls. Like master like spirit, Levi supposes, reaching for the water.

“Levi!” A blur of red rams against his side, nearly splashing the water to his lap if not for his reflexes, instead, he got an armful of squirming, whining little girl. Her hooded head nuzzles against his stomach, “Levi! Levi! Grandma hex?”

“Almost,” Levi tells her. “He was gonna banish me to the ocean.”

“No, I wasn’t. Stop slandering my image in her eyes,” Eren appears around the corner, hair slightly wind-swept than the last Levi saw him. He crouches behind pouting, puffing-cheeks Ymir, holding her shoulders, “You can introduce yourself to Levi, now. It’s okay.”

Ymir brightens, curtsying for Levi, skirt lifted daintily and all. “Marry me! I-I’m Ymir! She- Sheegashna!”

Eren snorts while Levi huffs, more amused than the former, who rolls his evergreen eyes. “It’s ‘merry meet’ and ‘of Shiganshina’,” Eren pinches her cheek. Ymir tries to bite his finger, giggling at her own failed attempt. “Ymir got a little trouble with speaking, she’s younger than she looks, but she’s adapting quick.”

“Levi, play knock-knock?”

“Not now, kid. Later, alright? I promise.” With placating head pats, Levi sweeps away his gaze from her pleading puppy eyes. “Why bring her here? We’re gonna talk ‘bout the werewolf. Too heavy for young ears, don’t you think?”

“The werewolf _and_ the child,” without warning whatsoever, Eren pulls down Ymir’s red hood.

Levi feels himself ages at least a whole decade at the sight of downy-soft furry pointed ears in place of the fleshy shell of human ears, twitching, poking out of the long, straight tresses of Ymir’s platinum blond hair, the fur’s color matching her hair’s.

“I figured I can hit two birds with one stone.”

The whole ordeal reveals to be a newborn moon-drunk rampage case.

Eren admits he had taken Ymir the night she transforms. The moon was plump and clear when one pair of talismans connecting him with Ymir’s father shattered, the conch shell bursting into shards on his bedside table cuts Eren’s sleeping face awake. He rushed to the house, already ransacked, two bodies laid dead, and a moon-drunk newly awakened werewolf pounced on him. After sending Ymir into forced sleep, Eren spirited her away into the forest with him, waiting out for the full moon to pass.

“Am I hearing this right? She’s _four?”_

“ _Almost_ four. She was smaller, before the transformation,” Eren says from the sofa across, the table act as a barrier between them. Ymir confirms with a proud nod from her guardian’s lap, raising four of her chubby fingers for Levi. It makes sense; sudden growth spurt is a common side-effect of born-werebeast’s first transformation. “I know it’s unusual, for the bestial side to emerge at such a young age.”

More like unheard of. Impossible, even. Born-werewolves begin to transform at the cusp of teenagehood; when they’ve already received prior training from their parents on what to expect, what potion to keep the madness and pain at bay, how to maintain their composure and thousands of lessons ingrained into their being from childhood. They’re supposed to have years to prepare. To transform so young...

Levi combs back the fringes of his hair under his hood, disbelief washing over him. “I take it her parents didn’t get to teach her properly yet, then.”

“Neither parents were a werebeast. My brother, the father of Ymir’s mother, was.” At Levi’s befuddled frown, Eren shrugs, “It skipped a generation. They didn’t expect the condition to manifest in their daughter, and my brother was long gone before Ymir was born.”

“Don’t tell me you’re a werewolf too,” a werewolf witch isn’t uncommon, but it’s still rare.

“We have different mothers. I’m a bastard.”

Nothing’s supposed to be funny about that statement, maybe its the inflectionless tone Eren uses or the way he assures Levi he’s an illegitimate child, but it sure was the exact moment the fraying cord of Levi’s sanity snapped. He barks out a single laugh, the rest of his levity emanates through humming close-mouthed chuckles in his throat. Hiding his face behind palms, muffling his stress-induced mirth.

Eren magnanimously gives Levi a moment to gather back his bearings, gulping up his third cup of tea. Ymir fills the otherwise awkward silence with her babbles, busying her hands with knotting a series of thin braids from Eren’s hair.

“Why,” Levi exhales, “didn’t you explain this to the villagers? It coulda solve _everything,_ and you wouldn’t have a hunter sniffin’ all up your business.”

Eren tilts his head, expression blank yet somehow imperious. “They’re not stupid, it’s easy to figure out it’s a newborn rampage since there are no more attacks. I assumed they’ll forget eventually.”

“The fuck,” Levi barks, feeling a vein pulsing strong on his firmed jaw. _"F_ _orget?_ Are you saying you’re just gonna leave them up in the air, wonderin’ when the werewolf might take one of them again, wonderin’ _what happened to the missing kid?”_

“They’ll get over it,” waving a dismissing hand, Eren scoffs, “humans do that, don’t they? Move on and forget. Their lifetime is fleeting as it is.”

Levi wishes to ask, _you’re human too ain’tcha?_ along with a rising temptation to peer through the adder stone, but his gut urges him to refrain. His gut feeling never lets him down when all else fails. If Ymir’s mother was the daughter to Eren’s brother, then... “How old are ya, granny?”

“Isn’t it rude to ask for a person’s age?”

“That sentiment usually applies to women, unless you really are a grand _ma._ ”

With much persuading and a dash of a threat to take the whole case under the Capital court’s nose, Levi managed to drag Eren and Ymir to the village after disassembling his wards with Eren's displeased arms-folding a step behind, vicious glare burning the back of Levi's head throughout. Explaining themselves to the chief and a group of villager’s representatives –which was more of Levi explaining the entire shitshow and Eren standing silent behind him, staring blankly at the balding chief who looked at Eren as though he’s seeing a ghost. Hannes runs into them as they made their way to the farmland again.

Hannes drops the burlap sack he was holding, face draining of color as he looks at the little blond girl between them. “Ain't that Lil' Ymir! Goddess bless us, you’re alright!”

Ymir, still in the red poncho, bringing along her basket full of flowers, squealed. Skittering behind Eren’s legs, who glares at Hannes suspiciously. “And you are?”

“I’m Hannes! The innkeeper of _Crimson Arrow._ Armin and Annie used to bring her along with them to dance night every Friday at my establishment,” Hannes crouches, smiling with unbidden relief. “Hey, little lion, you remember me? Huh. You’re bigger than I remembered. So it’s true then, she’s a werewolf?”

“Rumors spread fast, huh,” Levi says. Expected, really. It’s a small village. “Yeah, she’s the werewolf I’m lookin’ for alright. Her granny basically kidnapped her. Makes me wonder why she’s terrorizin’ the farmland, stealin’ a sheep too.”

“It’s your fault, really,” folding his arms across his chest, Eren accused. “You put up those wards that prevent _me_ from going out. I don’t know what’s going on, since the sigils you used are foreign to me. I told Ymir to stay away from the forest ‘till I figure out what’s going on.”

“How the hell you do that?”

“Scrying.” Eren points at the town square, “There’s a well there. That day, she was supposed to burn off excess energy running around the forest, but _of_ _course_ ,” he looks down to Ymir, giving her a reprimanding look, to which she shy away from, burying face into Eren’s pant leg, “she doesn’t listen to me when I told her _not_ to sneak into the village.”

“What’d ya expect. She’s a kid,” Levi rolls his eyes, “the only thing kids are good at is disobeying.”

“ _You’re_ her granny?” Agape bamboozled, Hannes scrutinizes Eren head to toe, “You look nowhere over thirty!”

“He’s a witch. _The_ witch,” Levi explains.

“Huh? But, my great aunt says the witch is a woman!”

“She must be referring to my mother,” Eren mutters vacantly, setting his gaze aside, unfocused. “She helped build this village, before she passed.”

“My condolences,” Hannes places his hand upon his heart, bowing his head. “It’s a mighty honor to meet the Witch of Shiganshina. May you continue to protect and nurture this land, sir. We are forever grateful.”

“Say...” Levi diverts the subject, observing Eren’s growing trepidation –the guy’s obviously uncomfortable, “...if Ymir hasn’t been able to come home for four days –my bad, then where’s she’s been staying at?”

“Momma and dada!” Ymir states matter-of-factly, pointing towards the road leading to the farmland, “With momma and dada! In stone garden!”

It takes all the adults a couple of heartbeats to comprehend what she meant.

Hannes guides them to the cemetery, a bit far beyond the corn fields, where Ymir then seizes the lead, sprinting straight to a pair of newly erected headstones. She pats the ground between them, where a pile of wheat under burlap sack laid out, where she proceeds to crawl up and sits upon it.

Levi wishes he can drink something strong right now.

“You slept here,” Levi groused, throat suddenly dry.

It _is_ his fault. And he got what he aimed for too; for the werewolf to face the repercussion of her action. But _gods,_ not like this. Never he wished it to be like this. The girl is innocent, she had no inkling of how to control her beastly side, she didn’t _mean it to happen_. He gives her no choice; no way she would’ve step foot into the house she had murdered her parents in, but sleeping outside between their graves, that’s another level of internalized guilt and unprocessed grief. She’s _four_.

Ymir nods, finger tracing patterns upon a grave marked with a name; _Armin Arlert._ Not meeting any of their eyes. Not speaking another word.

After giving his respects and gaining attentive approval to stroke Ymir’s head, assuring her she can swing by anytime to the inn and be warmly welcomed, Hannes left with a soft murmuring goodbye. Leaving the three of them alone in the cemetery.

Wordlessly, Eren crouches beside his grandniece. He helps Ymir weaves wreath from cosmos and lavenders she had gathered. Levi joins them, spreading the fallen petals on the soil and sprinkling water from his canteen, crowning both headstones with the finished wreaths. Levi is honestly surprised at Ymir, not once shedding a tear, merely clinging to Eren’s leg. Seeking comfort.

He wonders why Eren doesn’t catch the cues. Levi ushers her to him, “Want me to carry you? Your legs musta been tired.”

Ymir brightens, not a hint of apprehension at all as she jumps into his offered arms. Goddamn, this kid is too trusting. Heaving up, resting her on his hip. She giggles, tucking her face into the crook of his neck. Arms lacing about him, clinging, sighing in relief. The girl’s completely melted.

“Oi. You’re her granny, you’re the one who supposed to do this,” Levi sneers at the witch, who merely stares woodenly. “Can’t you tell she wants you to hug her?”

“She didn’t ask,” flatly, Eren justifies.

“She’s a kid. Kids speak with their attitude,” at least that’s what Eld claimed anyway, the man likes to brag about his wife and kids, about the woes and wonders of parenting to the rest of Levi’s hunting team until they’re all sick of it. Levi narrows his eyes, “Have you ever babysit her?”

Shaking his head, Eren says, “No. Last week on the full moon, was the first time I’ve seen her since her birth.”

The hell. “What, you and her folks got bad blood between you?”

“Nothing of the sort. I just... forget.”

“You _forget_. About your _family._ ” What would happen if the conch shell talisman didn’t shatter? What would happen if Ymir had transformed on her teenage years instead, with her parents already seeing the signs and teaching her accordingly? Already lost touch for years, Eren probably wouldn’t have bothered. Levi growls, “That kind of attitude ain’t gon’ fly in my book. People like that ain’t exactly the kind you allow to raise kids.”

“She’s my grandniece. By blood, I am the most fit to take care of her.”

“Not by ethical standards,” Levi snaps, holding Ymir tighter. “You can’t even muster a smidge of fuck to give to visit your niece’s family. Blood ties ain’t shit if you can’t raise kids with love, they’ll grow up all screwed in the head.”

Eren breaches the personal space between them, all up Levi’s face their foreheads near touching, looming over him with the same blazing fury as their first encounter. His hands grasping Ymir’s, waist, not tugging, but firmly set. “You cannot take her from me. I’m the only one she had left, and she, mine. This land will burn before I let hunters stole our children from us _again_.”

 _Again._ The words shake a warning bell in his mind to ring heavy, drowning. Bones shuddering with the freezing blood in his veins. The Great Hunt happened centuries ago, the year the hunters guild was established to be dispatched to burn and drown Shiganshina witches and their knowledge. What people don’t know was the bloodline theft. Children of witches stolen to either be reeducated or have their magic leeches off them.

No wonder he abhors Levi on sight. Immensely glad he didn't give his surname, Eren would surely gone ballistic if he learns of it; Levi is confident of his furred coat and hood hiding well most of his features. How old _is_ Eren to have remembered that part of history so thoroughly obscured, the new generations of royalty has no inkling of such atrocity? Hunters had scrubbed their filthiest stain to a clean, bleached spot, just like Shiganshina on the maps, and they make sure it stays spotless.

Levi cannot muster a single word, his lips paralyzed. Eren crystalizes them in deadly, creeping cold that slowly eats away the senses from Levi’s skin.

Ymir melts the tension between them, grasping at the clump of their shirts she can reach. Baying in distress, “It’s okay! Okay! Momma and dada grow! Like plants!” Ymir pats Eren’s cheek, blinking bewildered down to her, effectively straying his freezing gaze off Levi. “Don’t be sad, grandma! Momma and dada be back!”

“What,” Levi says, the confusion cracks free his mouth from the ice. “Ymir, what are you talking about?”

“Like plants! Grandma do so! Seeding earth in garden and _pop!_ Plants grow in garden!” She wiggles until Levi obliges, settling her down. Ymir pads to her makeshift cot, gesturing grandly at the cemetery around them, grinning like nothing’s wrong in the world, “Stone garden! Garden! Momma and dada ‘re seeds!”

Oh.

Oh fuck.

Levi snags the strings of Eren’s tunic, pulling him bending close so he can hiss straight to his ear, “Did you tell her that? The ol’ ‘sleeping underground’ bull? You’re more fucked up than I thought, witch.”

“No, I didn’t,” Eren whispers back, “I- I just... she didn't say anything, so I assume she understood and accepted it. Born-werewolves are lucid in their beastial form, aren’t they?”

“Not when they’re moon-drunk! Shit.” Levi glances at the little girl, blinking up at them, fretting, hands fidgetting the hem of her skirt. “We gotta tell her.”

“No. She’s not going take it well,” Eren shakes his head, “too young. She’s more delicate than I thought, it’ll break her. Perhaps when she’s older.”

“She will remember eventually, soon. If you keep it from her too long, it’s gonna blow in your face spectacularly,” at Eren’s tilting head of confusion, for the nth time this week, Levi sighs, head pounding with another wave of headache. “Look. Kids gotta learn ‘bout loss and death early, so they... won’t grow up clinging on to things that they’re supposed to let go.”

“I don’t want her to cry,” raw was his tone, Eren confesses in a whisper as though afraid any louder Ymir will flutter off like startled sparrow, away from his reach. Levi sense an impression of finally hearing one genuine emotion in Eren’s otherwise inflectionless voice.

“Kids are _supposed_ to cry, Eren,” Levi presses, near begging for Eren to understand, as he suspects Eren also forgets what sorrow means, “crying is natural. She has to come to terms with this, you gotta let her grieve. She fuckin’ slept between her parents’ graves, for fuck’s sake. She thought they’re gonna climb outta the earth any moment and surprise her or shit. You gotta settle it with her, do it like pulling a bandaid. The sooner and clearer, the better.”

Eren steals glances at Levi, unsure, yet gathering courage enough to approach Ymir, gingerly. Like she’ll bolt if he breathes wrong.

Dropping to his haunches so their eyes levels, Eren grasps her shoulders. “Ymir. Mom and dad can’t grow back, they’re not seeds.”

Ymir tilts her head, exactly how Eren does at something that intrigues yet eludes his understanding, “Then how they come back?”

“They can’t. They can’t come back,” Eren hammers down the words strong and blunt, not cutting corners. His hand settles upon the mound of earth where his niece rests deep, “They left and they won’t come back for us, they’re not seeds. We all were made from a mound of soil molded into a clump of blood; once our bodies are buried, we become one with the earth again.”

Ymir wobbles out a choppy word, chopping again, hitching, stuck in her throat. “B-but- momma- momma never leaves! Dada comes back too! Night? They come home at night?!”

Eren shakes his head, thumb stroking her cheek, “They can’t come home. They’re gone. Do you remember that night? With the harvest moon bathing you as you frolic in the field? Attacking me?” Levi swears under his breath. Eren, that madman, is he really going to- “Your parents too. It was you.”

Ymir’s breath hitches, eyes wells up with tears glimmering, overflowing to drench her cheeks drained of ripe apple colors. She whines through her tightly gritted teeth as though biting down her pain, a gutted sound, like a fox shot down with an arrow in the forest, like a shrike impaled on her own thorns. Eren glances back eyes rounding wide and gnawing bottom lip, to Levi –who’s refraining from cussing him out because _really? how fuckin’ tactless can a person be, and this is coming from Levi, the infamous Underground-born lout himself_ – soundlessly asking for further instructions.

More for the sake of the crying little girl than the hopeless emotionally-stunted man, Levi joins them, rubbing her trembling head. “It ain’t your fault. You don’t wanna do it, don’t you? But you can’t control it, you don’t know how. It’s not your fault. Nobody’s blaming you, not your dada and momma, not your granny, not the villagers, not me... and you shouldn’t either.”

Eren cradles her face, hands big enough to enclose her entire face, “Ymir, you still have me. You’re not alone. You’ll never be alone, I won’t leave you. I swear I won’t.”

Ymir blubbers something incoherent, then sobbing, hiccuping, a far thousand-fold more heart-wrenching than when Levi first approached her in the small meadow. She screams at the sky as though all of her sorrow won't fit in her tiny, fragile vessel, stomping her feet to counter the immense pain battering her insides. Eren opens his arms hesitatingly, enveloping her into his giant frame. Ymir buries her face into his shoulder, crying in earnest.

Ymir bleats, “Dun’ wan- don’t wanna do it again-”

“Then you won’t,” Eren hushes her plea. “Because if you don’t want to you won’t. You can do anything you want, you’re free to do whatever you wish.”

“Don’t wanna- moon- bad!” She pushes off Eren, frantically attempting to break out of his hold, “No! Grandma gon' be hurt! _No!”_

Eren only coils her tighter, smothering her into his chest, “I’m stronger than you. I stopped you, didn’t I? You can’t hurt me, nothing can. I swear I won’t leave you. We only have each other now.”

Ymir cries until the sun burns out the sky to coal.

.

“Hunter,” Eren calls from above the spiraling stairs, voice low, meeting Levi’s eyes where he sat on the sofa. “You’re still here.”

“Blame her. She got one hand bunched up my coat.” Ymir did, unwilling to let go of him as she hiccups in the folds of Eren’s embrace. Gripping so tight that she wails when Eren manages to unclench her fist off Levi’s furred coat, forcefully tugged along with the grandfather-granddaughter pair back into the cabin. “How is she?”

“She puked. I’ve tucked her in after a quick wash up,” Eren joins him in the sitting room. As soon as he sits down, the creepy-eyed pale _brùnaidh_ materializes out of the folds of thick curtains, pouring pipping hot tea into the cups emerging out of sight. “Would you like to stay for dinner? It’s late too. Yelena, prepare a room for our guest.”

“No need,” Levi raises a palm, “I was planning to head out tonight. The sooner I inform the guild, the better for all of us.”

“So soon? My power can extend to the borders of Maria to protect you on your journey, but the night is unpredictable. It’s far too dangerous, you should wait for dawn.”

Damn. On top of being ancient, Eren’s reach extends at such length? This is fucking crazy. The guild is gonna have a field day. “I travel better at night,” Levi rises with Eren following, courteously guiding him to the door, opening it for him. “Thanks for the offer, though.”

“Did you left your horse in the village’s stables?” Eren retrieves a lantern from the porch's table. A crystal glowing bright inside. Not that Levi needs it, his vision works just fine in pitch darkness.

“Ain’t bring no horse, they don’t agree with me.”

“Then how will you make it to Mitras?”

“I walk.”

Eren side-eye him with furrowing brows but decides not to question the ways of a madman. Levi is a bit disappointed. Usually, it garners more explosive reactions from people. Then again, he’s dealing with an ancient witch who perhaps had seen a disappropriate amount of bullshittery throughout his long life to be surprised by anything else the world can throw at him.

Surprisingly, Eren accompanies him beyond the moon gate, treading the forest along with Levi. He says not a word, and Levi isn’t really the best conversationalist when it’s not necessary. As so their lips, their steps are silent under the light of waning moon peeking behind foliages of giant trees; Levi’s muffled while Eren’s nonexistent, as though he’s walking the air instead of the ground. The forest bathed in ashen complexion, the fiery colors had burned out.

Eren breaches the silence first.

“Will you come back?” Levi turns to face him, a bit taken aback the witch would want him around again, knowing his –justified– hatred of hunters. “You didn’t get to play with Ymir again.”

“Ah? Oh, right. I don’t think I can. Gonna be real busy with other hunts.” Gods know what else Erwin –the slavedriver of a guild master he is– has in store for him, not to mention the paperwork for this case alone gonna give him a mother of all headache. Sixty gold coins ain’t looking all that satisfying of a reward.

“But you promised her, didn’t you? She’s going to cry, and I don’t know how to handle her if she cries again.”

“You did a well enough job back there. You’re her guardian now, figure it out.”

“What if I fail? What if I... lose her?” Eren fumbles with the girdle of his tunic, the viridian of his eyes clouded over. “I realize I’m... lacking. In this whole... raising kids... stuff. You said if I don’t raise her with love, she’ll grow up... wrong.”

“You’re plenty loving enough,” Levi mustered out, tongue brittles from awkwardness, a sour feeling tingling his jaw and lips. He can't believe a sentence that corny just spat outta his mouth. Honestly, he was flying by the seat of his breeches when he went on that spiel, now he’s able to properly digest his own preaching, Levi wishes he could shove an entire broom down his cursed throat.

“From what I know, there’s no right or wrong way in parenting. You’re already good at teaching her what she needs to know to survive and giving her independence,” seeing as he let a four-year-old run around free in the forest without supervision, only relying on pure blind faith that she’ll come back before dusk, believing in her abilities and the wisdom he bestowed her so she may avoid or pass supernatural encounters safely, trusting she would find her own accommodations as he figured out how to dismantle Levi’s wards...

...Alright, maybe Eren is not much of a responsible parent. Gods, the girl is doomed, isn’t she. “I take it back. Love alone ain’t enough to raise kids,” he tries to recall Eld’s ramblings, prying out the half-drunk memories. Shit, he can’t believe _he’s_ giving _parenting advice_ to a fucking _elder magi_. “If you just shower her with love without setting boundaries and coddling her all the time, she’s gonna be spoiled as fuck and spoiled kids won’t make functional adults. But if you’re too harsh, she’d just be too chickenshit to come to you for comfort and counsel; again, a dysfunctional adult. Just balance right between strict and fun, you get me? Don’t lose your cool, ever, don’t ever raise your hands on her.”

“I would _never_ ,” Eren hisses, the air buzzes with static electricity, the locks of his long hair flutters more than from the breeze, wafting scent of ozone before a lightning strike and charred flesh. “Children are precious to us, what kind of monster you think I-”

Levi placates him swift, “I’m not insinuating anything, you obviously won’t harm a strand of her hair. Just watch how you act, ‘cause kids gonna learn from your example.”

“You seem to know a lot about this. Do you have kids?”

Levi snorts. Him with kids is a disaster in the making. “Gods forbid. No. Never. I make a shitty parent.”

“I don’t think so,” Eren tilts his head, Levi begins to see the spitting image of Ymir in him –or more accurately, the other way around. Their mannerism and big eyes remind him of owls. “You’re not so bad, hunter. I will welcome you if you chance a visit, I know Ymir will be ecstatic. I also owe you, so if you ever need my assistance, I shall provide it.”

“Much obliged,” Levi internally sighs, glad he didn’t fudge it too badly. Then, remembering, “You alright, though?”

“Hm?”

“Your niece and in-law passed away just last week,” Levi gingerly pries, warily watching Eren’s face, testing the waters. “It probably hasn’t set in yet, you were busy taking care of Ymir.”

“What hasn’t set in?” furrowing his brows, Eren says, “They’ve passed on; I understand that. I’m not a child.”

“Whether you’re a kid or not, grief is a thing everybody at all ages went through. Have you found the time to grieve?”

“What’s the point? I’ll just forget it,” emotionless his tone may be, but there’s a resignation across the line of his shoulders, the color of his eyes dims in intensity. “These kinds of things, it’ll pass. Like the passing of seconds, the blossoming and withering of flowers, the straw-thin movement of stars... I’ve watched the village rises and its people born and gone. I’ve outlived dozens of generations of your kings, fell off the throne and crowned again anew. This is just another tide to pass by me.”

How old is he, the question lingers, then Levi realizes it matters little. What’s a mark of age means to Eren? He probably gave up counting a long time ago.

“Do you love them?” Levi dares question, then rephrases, “Do they matter to you?”

Eren stills into silence. Seconds ticks by and wind hums, the trickling passage of moments wasting, none affects him. Not once faltering in step, moving ever forward unobstructed.

"Here, take this." Levi takes the lantern off Eren's proffered hands, the crystal's intense luminescence tricks him into near-believing he's holding a sun in his hand. "The night will grow darker in Maria, the moon won't always be around to watch over you."

"That can't be right," Levi scoffs, such sentiment ridiculous to him, "the moon never leaves me."

The next step Levi takes breaches through the forest's boundary, nearly tripping himself from the startling change. The farmland beyond greets him with their waving wheat and the waning moon hung on the star-dusted heavens.

“Good night and blessed be, hunter.”

The forest had swept Eren out of sight when Levi turns around.

**Author's Note:**

> So! I hope you enjoyed this delightful little story about how Levi acquires a daughter and a husband all in one go when he's supposed to be hunting dangerous magical beast. Because nothing distracts you more than a hot single dad with a cute kid living in a fairytale cabin in the woods and brewed one hell of a tea. The perfect Levi Ackerman trap. The next two chapters will have day-to-day snippets of wooing witches and raising baby werewolf! Pray for Levi guys.
> 
> Ancient pagan cultures believe that spirits and gods resided in trees, knocking on tree trunks is believes to call the spirit residing in trees/wood for protection and good luck or to show gratitude.
> 
> According to legends, if you break a double strawberry in half and share it with another person, you will fall in love with each other ;)


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